I glanced behind me down the length of the North wall. Only a few hundred yards long, this wall delineated what amounted to a small peninsula of the Furd plant, which in actuality sprawled like a Lego amoeba across this section of Detroit. Halfway down the length of this wall was an emergency exit; a door which remained steadfastly closed. With a single look into the cart I had shepherded to this tiny frozen corner of this aging industrial mecca, I reassured myself that the goo-covered remains of my violently slaughtered and apparently robotic friend Chuck remained hidden beneath the pile of garbage I’d cleverly piled on top of him. Nestled within the trash, clearly visible, was the recently emptied and still steaming coffee urn which had been left behind by the millwrights in their haste to leave the vacant lot across the street.
    Peering around the corner at the rapidly emptying parking lot, I rubbed my hands together in front of me in a futile attempt to bring warmth and feeling back to my tired fingers. Once again I pressed my pelvis against the disabled end of the cart with its precious cargo and braced myself for the effort ahead.
    As I readied myself to move on, I confess I had mixed feelings about losing sight of this door, this one-way portal out of the factory. A factory within which, only minutes ago, I toiled away at my thankless job attaching “Do Not Attempt to Grow Merijuana in Glove Compartment” stickers to the dashboards of Furd Expulsion SUVs. And a door which, only moments ago, was slammed shut by my foreman and sudden nemesis, Bruce Cornsley.
    Part of my ambivalence towards that damned door was how it rendered mysterious the current whereabouts and intentions of Bruce and the grotesque miniature head growing out of his neck—his clown faced brother. Of course, if he were with me outside that door, I would have to fight him or flee, leaving Chuck behind. Chuck’s tongue, currently hidden beneath a knot of coffee-soaked Styrofoam cups, had topographically begged me to hide him, and I never was one to turn my back on a friend’s tongue…even if that friend had just confessed to being an android from the future.    Still pressing my pelvis against the disabled end of the cart, I gripped the frigid rolled steel edge, lifted up with a grunt and pushed the heavy thing around the corner towards the employee parking-lot.
    Waddling along, I repeatedly barked my thighs and shins against the cart. I bit my lip to hold in the expletives my autonomic system was trying to sneak past my vocal cords, and instead whined pitifully. I felt assaulted by my own frailty; my shoulders were burning from continuously holding the considerable weight off the ground, my fingers tingled furiously through their cold numbness and the frozen steel wall of the cart sucked every ounce of heat from my crotch–making me feel as if I might be passing through puberty backwards. The abuse I was now heaping on my legs was almost too much, and I despaired of ever reaching my little hatchback so many yards away.    I was doing my best to make my progress look nonchalont; I was just another worker pushing a cart full of trash through the employee parking lot.
    Yeah, right, I thought, just another worker, eyes bulging with effort, biting his lip, waddling intensely with his manhood pressed up against a steel cart–all during a hazmat emergency.
    Ten steps. Eleven. Twelve. I began to feel a little bit of hope. A car, on its way out of the lot, passed me by with the driver giving me nary a single glance. Thirteen.Another car passed, and this time the man behind the wheel did look at me, but quickly turned to watch where he was driving, an expression of worry writ across his face. Fourteen. I hazarded a look over my shoulder toward the factory.    This wall was much larger than the North wall with the emergency exit which I’d left behind. Crowned with stubby steel vents and smokestacks, it extended a full quarter mile to the South. Centered along its formidable length was a long row of glass doors, boxed in and separated from the parking lot by a tall fence pierced with numerous turnstiles. Those spinning gates counted us on the way in and out while a recorded message greeted us. I remembered that all this week the pleasant female voice had advised us to “Be Kind Workers, Not Blind Workers.”
    There had been protests, as several visually impaired workers were quick to point out that the blind might also be kind and the unkind not blind at all. After an hour of trying to compose a suitable call-and-response protest chant out of this seemingly rich material, the five or so blind workers settled on the phrase “My Eyes Don’t Cry No More!” which prompted a lively debate about the advisability of line dancing with a severe visual impairment. When an executive arrived on the scene and accused the lot of them of being unkind blind who shouldn’t mind, the blind indicated they certainly did find that they mind. A little used contractual proviso against Suessian conduct resulted in an immediate three day suspension of all parties involved. The next day we all found that the turnstiles’ recorded announcement blithely continued to blather on about being kind and not blind, but since none of us were blind, we didn’t really mind.
    But today the turnstiles were folded out, undoubtedly to allow the evacuating workers a quicker exit. Above the glass doors behind the fence a red flashing light strobed, and the siren I had heard earlier rose and fell, notifying us all about the supposed emergency inside.
    There were few workers still leaving the plant. Other than the emergency response volunteers, everyone is required to leave, go home, and await a phone call from the personnel office telling them when they might return to work. It had been at least fifteen or twenty minutes since the alarm had gone off, and I imagined that other than those still dawdling in the parking lot with me, the place was emptied.
    I realized I had stopped, let go of the cart, and had been hazily staring at the factory for awhile. Shaking my head clear, I resumed my strenuous penguin march toward my Furd Pinata. To my considerable relief, no one was paying much attention to me, and cars continued to stream past on their way out. I was making quite good progress, and was only fifty yards or so from my car when I noticed that two figures loitered nearby a pickup truck in the parking space adjoining my own.
    Crap. One of them had turned to curiously watch my approach. Looking at me from where she stood next to the cab of the truck with her too-tight jeans, slightly plump figure and long brown hair was Cindy.
    The other figure leaned against the passenger door of the small pickup, shifting nervously and drumming her skinny legs with her free hand. One look at the pile of cigarette butts surrounding her feet and the thin wisp of smoke drifting up from her occupied hand told me all I needed to know about the identity of the other woman.
    Gail’s Marlboro Man looked at me from the dashboard of her truck where she’d discarded her hard-hat. Her straw-like hair, mushrooming out in an impressive display of helmet-hair, partially obscured her face. Her practiced hand pushed the hair behind her ear while deftly maneuvering the red-hot tip of her cigarette so as to avoid setting herself on fire.
    Her good eye looked at me with obvious relief and concern while her wandering one seemed to look up at the sky above the factory.
     “Hey, Gail,” called out Cindy over her shoulder in a voice unnecessarily loud for the few feet separating the women, “Its Joe!” She took in my appearance and the cart. “You need some help, man?”
    Gail tossed the spent butt to the ground amidst the dozen or so others at her feet and stepped away from the truck towards me, stomping the cig out in passing.
    ”Shit, Joe, what the hell is going on?” she asked and, to my amazement and concern, she grabbed the far end of the cart and began pulling it, uncharacteristically attempting to help me. “Everything is so fucked up,” she began, “Everyone’s leaving, and I was going to leave like you said, but I saw your car, and then Cindy needed a ride, and, and..,” she then glanced down into the cart, “Holy shit, what the hell is this?”
    I looked down then as well, satisfying myself that what she was seeing was only the shocking sight of the broken coffee urn, and not the hidden Chuck parts hidden underneath. Good. Now we see if I was twice as smart as I feared I wasn’t.